


like grenadine and gasoline, pink smoke

by coatylbutter



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Character Study, Gas Masks, Gen, i guess, yeah thats it my works arent that deep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:34:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24694594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coatylbutter/pseuds/coatylbutter
Summary: One thing she learned over the years was that gas masks were really stuffy.
Relationships: no - Relationship
Comments: 8
Kudos: 35
Collections: victors' tower (stories from floor 6)





	like grenadine and gasoline, pink smoke

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WreakingHavok](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WreakingHavok/gifts).



> Title is from Pink Smoke by the scary jokes. My friend recommended me them a few days ago and their Vibes are Immaculate and their lyrics make excellent titles. 
> 
> Anyways time for me trying to be all introspective and probably just end up sounding like an idiot instead, part 5.

One thing she learned over the years was that gas masks were really stuffy.

Of course, she still had to wear them to the parties anyways. Angel had a brand to uphold. And she wasn’t an old enough victor that the capitol stopped caring about the exorbitance of the outfits. Granted, the gas mask was a pretty big part of her brand, even the oldest victors still wore their “defining piece”. She didn’t know if she would ever be able to stop wearing those shitty things.

Did you know it’s really damn hard to speak in a gas mask? The capitol has pre-recorded voice lines in there for her to play at will with a remote. If she tried to talk normally, it’d be all muffled and hard to hear. She didn’t know where they got all these voice lines. They sure as hell never asked her to record any with them.

Her mentor had to wear a mask too. Angel wondered if the designers had done that on purpose, made them match like they were all friendly. Or perhaps it was just a coincidence. She didn’t know if he wore his mask outside of the parties the Capitol had them all attend, but he probably did. 

She thought he was weird with his… stupid knight’s helmet. But she was probably just as weird with her stupid gas mask. Outside of the parties, Angel almost never covered her face, only doing so for face cam streams. No reason to do so otherwise. She hated it. 

She didn’t do face cam often, and when she did, she had to wear a gas mask. Part of her brand, and part of the carefully constructed image the Capitol had constructed for her. The good thing was that she could record her own lines on her Stream Deck instead of having the Capitol’s pre-recorded lines. This gave her some sense of control, though it was extremely limited in most regards. And it was tiring.

Before she could stream with a face cam, she had to record a bunch of voice lines, make sure the audio was consistent, and then send the voice lines to President Charles for his approval; to make sure she wasn't doing anything treasonous against the Capitol.

Once the lines were approved, she had to figure out a way to keep the conversation in order with what she could reasonably do with pre-recorded lines. 

If you were to actually pay attention, most of her face cam streams had someone else on, usually a fellow victor from Floor 5. After all, telling someone which direction to steer the conversation in beforehand is much easier than trying to guide it a specific way with the chat. 

And after all that work was finally said and done, most of the time she only goes for an hour. Like Angel said before, the masks are stuffy and she only has so many lines to work with.

Even if she doesn’t enjoy the whole ordeal with face cam, she still will prepare a face cam stream every month. She puts lots of thought into all of her streams. 

Angel had a somewhat consistent streaming schedule. Almost every other day, but no YouTube. It wasn’t that she didn’t have time to edit, hell, she had all the time in the world. She just thought her content was better suited to streams, back and forth banter with her chat and friends. Her fans didn’t care, either way, people would show up to her streams no matter what. 

Angel would sometimes notice repeating names in her chat, regulars that would show up often. That was nice. She always wondered what happened to them if they would suddenly stop showing up to her streams. Even if she’d never met them, having any sort of contact with people outside of her floor made her happy, even if it was purely a parasocial relationship.

She didn’t hate living on Floor 5. Sure, Angel could think of at least 10 other places she would rather be at any given moment, but she was comfortable. And there wasn't a lack of stuff to do, between the streaming and the internet and other people on her floor.

One thing she liked to do was dye her hair. It gave her a sense of freedom; like she had some form of choice in her life. Even if it was just imitating choice, Angel still liked being able to choose if her hair was pink or blue, or how about both this week? 

She notices that within 24 hours her wiki will always be updated to her current hair color. 

As much as Angel hates the gas mask theme she was given by the Capitol, others had it much worse. She definitely isn’t jealous of Minx, who’s persona seems so… exhausting to uphold during every stream. Plus the claws and fangs- more extreme than her stupid mask. Taking off a mask is easy, but when you’ve got fangs, you just have to live with them.

Then again, when she saw people like Wilbur who just had to put on a beanie and sing a little song, she just felt insulted (She knew there was more to it, she knew he had it just as hard as the rest of them. But sometimes he seemed to be handling everything much too well.)

But at the end of the day, no matter how much she hated the gas mask and the pre-recorded voice lines and the song and dance she has to go through every time she uses a face cam, the Capitol still has a brand for her to uphold. And they always get the final say in things, the last laugh. 

Whatever. Pull on the mask, use the dumb remote to talk in lines that shouldn’t exist, be the famed Angel of Death. 

The gas mask may be stuffy, but once the party is over, once she hits “end stream”, once she’s back alone in her room, she’s allowed to take it off and breathe a little bit.


End file.
